He muttered, answering each one of my words like a conscience:
"Why great? You must always have something greater in you than any one else."
"Those are not his words," I thought. "He has copied them from some one."
"Kostin was right when he called you a bell tower. But you are not the kind that rings only for mass, but one which rings by itself, because it was built crooked and the bells are badly hung."
He remained silent, and then he added:
"I don't like you, Monk. You are so strange."
"How?"
"I don't know. Are you really a Russian? I don't think you are good."
At any other time I would have become angry, but now I was silent. I became suddenly weak, tired unto death. Night and the wood were around us. Between the trees the gray darkness fell thickly and became dense. It w as difficult to tell which was night and which was tree. The moonbeams glistened above, broke themselves upon the body of the darkness and vanished. It was quiet. All these people, beginning with Juna, bore no fear. Some were filled with anger, others were always gay, and most of them were quiet, modest people, who seemed to be ashamed to show their goodness.
Kostia walked along the path, and his blond head shone like a light before me. I recalled the youth of Bartholomew, the God-child Alexei and others. No, that was not the right!